The present technology relates to the assembly of an electronic device, and more specifically, to an electronic device assembled with a printed circuit board and a carrier frame supporting the printed circuit board.
Most if not all electronic devices include one or more printed circuit boards (PCBs). During assembly, the board(s) are screwed to or otherwise connected to a portion of the electronic device's housing or other boards within the housing. One type of electronic device is an imaging device, more generally referred to as a camera. An imaging device is generally used to inspect, locate and/or acquire an image of an object. For example, in manufacturing applications, imaging systems can be used to detect defects in a manufactured object by acquiring images of the object and using various types of image processing algorithms to analyze the images. Unlike traditional cameras that use film to capture and store an image, some imaging devices use various electronic, solid-state, and other devices including vision sensors, controllers, illumination devices, lenses, and the like.
Some imaging devices can include a housing with the solid state devices mounted to several rigid PCBs, with the rigid PCBs held in the desired configuration by the housing. One of the several rigid PCBs needs to be aligned with a lens, and the lens needs to be aligned with an opening in the housing. Connectors are used to connect the one or more of the PCBs together, which adds size, cost, assembly time, and possible areas for failure. The size of the housing is limited to the size of the various solid-state devices and the rigid PCBs used to support them.
Improvements have been made in the area of printed circuit boards for electronic devices. PCBs are now available in flexible form, and a hybrid of rigid and flexible, known as rigid-flex. The hybrid rigid-flex PCB generally consists of rigid and flexible substrates that are laminated together into a single structure. Another form of PCB is known as a rigidized flex construction, which is simply flex circuits that include stiffeners attached to provide support for the electronic components on the circuit board. A rigid-flex circuit typically has conductors on the rigid layers, which differentiates it from multi-layer circuits with stiffeners.
The electronic devices of the prior art have several disadvantages in not only the assembly process, but in the overall size and limits on the serviceability of rigid circuit boards and reliability of PCB connectors. What is needed are systems and methods that use a carrier frame to support the PCBs for easy assembly and for support of other device components, without the problems and drawbacks associated with rigid PCBs.